Harmonica •
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Aww it's so cute that all the positive, intelligent responses in this thread get negged down! As usual such a nice insight into the knuckle dragging comments thread community. And not one single one of you can bring yourself to type a reply! How does it feel to be so utterly devoid of reason that all you can do mash a button? Pretty bad, I guess.

Keep on hating on, such vindication is hard to come by.

And to all those spreading love, insight, and good discussion, know that your comments are read and digested by those that matter. Reply-3

@Kasjer The trouble with defending Alien3 on horror terms is that Alien isn't a horror film, it's a suspense thriller. They're distinct things. Sure, there were elements of horror (body horror, sexual horror, etc) but it was by no means a horror film. Alien3, maybe it's trying to be a horror film. I think the genre kind of got lost in the mix.

The main problem with taking Alien3 on its own terms is that there was a certain naivety in how Fincher wants it to be judged in that way, basically acanonical and a fresh start. There was a certain naivety and youthful arrogance in him that he thought he could take a franchise film and make this capsule that would stand alone from the previous versions.

Apart from that, you're right, judging things by comparison is lazy and doesn't really get to the truth of the matter. Reply-3

Randy comes across very well in this. Very articulate. Beatles analogies are perhaps a bit much, and there's some ego cushioning and smoke and mirrors, of course, that comes with the job, but a lot of what he said is well put.

And, y'know, for the record he's right. People are nuts to judge a game on the perceived differences between a dev build and the final product, rather than judging the final product itself. On its own terms, A:CM was playable. Mediocre, mostly, but it had its moments. I took it at face value and I enjoyed it on those terms, like a rational person should do.

Anyway, at the end of the day, most sane people would rather be either that person emailing in screenshots every week, or to have moved on with their lives the moment the game came out. It's the true neer do wells that make it their life mission to be negative about everything. Reply-12

The Indie Stone are good guys and I know they'll get there eventually, but I agree, the NPCs are the biggest thing holding me back from not playing it regularly. If I had a private server hosted I might play multiplayer with friends but without rival or allied NPC gangs roaming around, the gameplay kind of lacks a narrative beyond 'get food and don't die'. The map isn't really the issue for me since it's already huge.

At least a lot of the components are in place now. And there is proper progress being made month on month, unlike a few games I could mention which have not made visible progress in years. Reply0

@TheDarkSide I agree with your sentiment but for the record that is basically exactly how we felt about the original Battlefront games. And then we tried to play them online and for 90% of games they were a mess. Some of the worst netcode and general online support and design ever, despite the fact that yeah, it was Star Wars, they got the license and they made it look attractive. Reply+1

I'd prefer to hear that they tried it and it didn't work, rather than about them being big and bulky and that being the reason. The best justification they could have offered is that playing the AT-AT's properly was in itself like being on rails, because there wasn't much scope for player flair or doing things differently. That would be a more understandable reason to not allow players to take control.

Mainly it seems like old Battlefront games were scripted, they've followed that lead rather than trying something innovative, and so the big assets are going to be scripted. The old Star Wars Battlefront games had many issues so if they've obviously used them as design templates, that's not particularly inspiring. Although a visually impressive Star Wars experience is nice, I'd actually like to see them shake things up a bit more than just giving the game series a new coat of paint.

The justification that players might lose if they play badly also seems questionable. You can very easily lose games of Battlefield (Rush in particular) in the first 30 seconds of the game if you take an asset like a tank and run into into a mine. Or even if your team fails to rush (hence the game mode) the correct objective en masse and hangs back, you have more than likely lost that round. Actually it's one of the strengths of good online competitive games that there's something at stake and you have to play well to win (I mean, obviously right?). Curtailing the ability to interact with the battlefield is generally a negative, there's even some Battlefield maps that swing in this direction, where essentially the odds are really stacked against you ever losing a round as long as you attritionally grind down the defenders, regardless of actually playing well. Those maps are much less fun.

I'd like to be given the opportunity to play the game badly and lose, as well as to play the game differently and take advantage of it. Reply+3

@williamarthurfenton You'll obviously have no problem explaining which elements of the sophisticated strategy of 'moving dudes behind cover', 'firing at aliens' and 'hiring new recruits' are compromised by using a gamepad in the case of XCOM.

Oh wait, there aren't any.

The units move on a grid. The rest of the game is menu screens. There's nothing that can't be easily translated for gamepad control. Reply+12

I feel like someone should tell them that in the year of our lord 2015 people play PC games with gamepads. Incredible concept, using gamepads with computers, we've only been doing it since the 80s after all. Reply+12

The bigger issue here is that Valve are apparently afraid of moderating their own services until there's a public outcry, at which point, they'll go with whatever the public response is. This kind of attitude is carried across how they manage their game environments, too.

I feel like they need to be setting higher standards, and absolutely nobody has a problem with them stating 'this is our house, you play by our rules'. Nobody, or at least nobody that matters, would have a problem with them preemptively removing this game from the Greenlight process.

This is a billion dollar company that can't be bothered with moderating their services which are used by tens of millions of people daily. It's kind of poor. Reply+4

Coming Out on Top looks solid from the int-fiction game perspective, but I'm not sure I could ever get excited by the particular brand of blokes they chose. I mean it's good that the game exists and I can even complain about this at all, but I feel that the top-heavy (hurr durr) muscle bound guys are just a disappointingly played out trope. It's either portraying incredibly vanilla sex, or it's not actually meant to be played by guys.

The hair customisation options screen is also very weird, and it sort of gives me the impression that it's rather more slanted towards straight women than what you might assume. If that's true I think it's kind of a betrayal of the subject matter, and not really as big a step forward as we might like to think. Not that guys won't play it and enjoy it, but it represents a pretty homogenised lite-erotica impression of what gay sex is. Being able to tailor their particular body hair is not really in line with what I think modern, progressive, accepting sex is about.

Ultimately I feel the same about sex in games as I do in other mediums - its only use is to get people off, otherwise it's irrelevent. It's one of the most absolutely urbane things that people do, so it's not really interesting or entertaining. It can barely ever be used to forward the plot, and something that does nothing to forward the plot doesn't have merit being included. So essentially, if you're making interactive porn, go nuts, but you'd better make the sex incredible. Reply-2

It's pretty ridiculous that a company of their size cannot moderate submissions better, or that it takes so long for things to get taken down.

This was one of the reasons I moved away from Apple. Their store is absolutely clogged up with cloneware and crapware. It's actually pretty much impossible to seriously browse apps that get added to the appstore, which of course makes it really great for the big publishers because they can just get their app reviewed on popular sites, but impossible for smaller indie developers to get noticed.

Of course, it's the same on Android as well, so really, all these companies are currently behind the game in terms of moderation user content. Reply+1

@elfergos Times don't change, technology advances, a generation gets older and worries about whatever new technology exists being potentially worrisome for their children.

Unfortunately it is unlikely that we will avoid this fate, we just won't be talking about illicit VHS watching or sneaking into cinemas or playing videogames, it'll be virtual reality or something. Reply0

Something like this has been happening every day of the year in every game ever made for decades. And out on the playground, kids are taking your ball and kicking it over the fence. It's a rite of passage, that doesn't make it interesting to read about.

I know Destiny is flavour of the month, every month, right now but this is not really newsworthy. It's pretty banal. And just why would I want to watch a video of some kid in tears? This is not a spectator sport.

Some people are dicks, and some people are gullible. Really glad that was reaffirmed to me. Reply+4

Sad that it will end up taking them well over a year plus the entire life cycle of the 360 to add a feature that was available on modded original Xboxs back in 2004. You could even bind it to whatever button press combo you wanted (like double stick-press). It's not that complicated, I just don't think engineers at Microsoft actually play games on their Xbox consoles. You can bet that it won't be tied to a button combination as well since they just love to drag you through their menus to do simple things. Reply0

These are some very promising mechanics and they seem to be taking a more developed and different approach to the Day Z-like than the spate of more generic clones.

Their approach to the 'death by sniper' situation, for example, shows they've thought a bit more than most about it. It's a tough call because you want people to go after high powered gear and you want to allow for dynamic pvp, but they're right, allowing players to hide in a bush and pick people off at will is not particularly fun for either side. The player radar system they're going for worked really well in Stalker since it gave you information on the general danger of the area without actually telling you 'hey there's a guy hiding behind that bush' (but if you were smart enough, you could figure out where people were likely to be hiding). It also ramped up the tension significantly, but allowed you to prepare for combat at the same time.

@ghostgate2001 Perhaps a bit harsh considering how much the game changes month on month. Most months it has been entirely worth updating and starting a new game because it has played differently and with more complexity.

Although I agree with the sentiment that whenever they start on their next project that will be exciting too (but I would not really expect to hear much about that for much of 2016 if at all!). Reply+1

It's going to be used outdoors by some people, though - even if it doesn't support it proprietarily. The possibilities for true open world gameplay are kind of staggering when you think about it. This kind of technology, combined with a GPS tracker, stuff from Google Earth, and any basic mechanics would really be a game we haven't seen the likes of yet.

I think it's fairly realistic to assume that people will get this kit or later versions of it, and play Day Z in their local surroundings (or even games that don't involve shooting people, imagine that!). We're also going to see some terrifying horror games (would such things have to come with a health warning?)

This would certainly spice up your D&D sessions when your party runs into a group of goblins and the goblins are actually there in front of you. (even if they're in your living room!) Reply+1

Poleconomy is another take on the basics of Monopoly, for those who can find it. In place of properties and railroads you have the three arms of industry, government and finance, with various interactions. I think I bought it at a car boot sale a long time ago, but it comes out a few times a year on rainy days. Reply0

For all they might protest when people sell their cheap loot, the entire aim of these stunts is to drum up publicity, and this will continue to be a thing so long as sites post news articles about the inevitable ebay auctions that follow.

I'm not sure what our response is meant to be other than 'this happens every time' or 'this is not interesting' or 'stop posting about it'.

By posting these articles you are enabling the entire process. Reply+31

There was a mod in the works for Far Cry 3 that replaced all the creatures with dinosaurs, aiming for the Jurassic Park experience. It got people excited at the time. Not sure how far along that got. I can imagine that was part of the inspiration for this poll option.

It still remains the case that nobody has yet done a prehistoric or dinosaur themed open world game justice, though there's a few currently in development.

Not sure if a Western themed game would be able to do enough to differentiate itself from Red Dead or the likes of Call of Juarez, even if on the face of it a Western landscape with roving gangs in the Far Cry style sounds fun. Reply0

It had some lag problems on day one of the release, it had some texture caching problems and AI problems. They were all sitting there in a day one patch, but we just couldn't get people to re-review it after the release. To its credit, once we'd patched it everyone gave it 4.5, 5 stars.

No those weren't the only problems, and no, people who were playing it after the patch would not have given it 4 or 5 stars. If they were being generous they would have given it 3 stars with a 'can do better' sticker. (read: 'must do better pretty soon or I'm returning your game.')

I remember having some fairly long discussions with the developers during the tail end of development, release, and the weeks that followed, and the overall impression was that they just didn't understand what the fundamental problems with the game were from the players' perspective. Kind of crazy given how tailored and refined an experience their older mods were.

We all gave them chance after chance to get it right but the BRINK that was definitely possible with some tweaking and polish never materialised. They basically shipped it and wanted to wash their hands of it ASAP, which is ultimately what killed it and what soured the impression people have of the studio. They did not stick it out and work on it month after month and cut the price for sales (as many suggested, to bring in much needed new players). There have been some fairly mediocre games ship which then get improved and polished up to becoming proper classics (something like Natural Selection 2 would be a good example). BRINK could have been that game too.

The only reasonable way to approach this new game of theirs is to wait for a month post-release, and then see if a) it's playable b) it's any good c) there is anyone still playing it. Because neither of those were true of BRINK a month after release, but a few of us still stuck around to give them a chance... Nope. Reply+1

I've almost purchased this a few times, I love the design of it and never played the original. However, I did hear some talk that the player base wasn't exactly massive right now.

Can anyone talk to that? Are there plenty of people in the matchmaking pool so I can always find a game in a few minutes? Are the games at all balanced or will I just be getting crushed versus veterans? Reply0

@bigtechno It's important to remember that the game is absolutely vast, so you can completely avoid trolls if you want to simply by leaving the core systems.

You could even go solo mode, find your own little route to fly, and then go back online, where you'd only meet people who were also running the same trade missions (outside of the core systems there's absolutely no way that anyone can make a profit doing interdictions, they could in reality never ever see another player). Reply+2

@KrazyFace I guess that Elite will at some point add the whole planet landing experience. They do have procedural planets in the game operating at a basic level (textures are pretty low res/broken at low altitude though).

But if you or anyone else just wants that pure exploration experience, I'd recommend checking out SpaceEngine. It's not a game yet, but it's a hell of an experience. Pick any feature you can see in the sky, fly to it, land on planets, and have everything generated in procedural with some beautiful graphics.

The dev who is creating it does eventually plan to develop it into a full game experience ala Elite, but right now it's just a fantastic toy for would-be space explorers. Reply+1

Having watched a little of it this afternoon on streams, it's clear it has a bit of a way to go before it should be considered properly playable. The dinosaur AI/pathing/animation is pretty comical at the moment (although the models are nice), and the game doesn't seem to be balanced. Surviving attacks from any of the dinosaurs shouldn't really be a thing. The island environment, however, is lovely, and the overall atmosphere from the visuals/audio is impressive. It reminds me a lot of Trespasser (EXTEND THE ARM! etc).

theHunter actually has pretty solid AI for its creatures so I hope they'll polish it up to the same degree. Reply0

@Chazmeister Hmm, well it's mostly about learning procedures, which get steadily more complicated the larger the aircraft you're flying. The tutorials in FSX are great, though (the instructor Rod Machado is a bit of a legend thanks to just how many thousands of pilots he has tutored!). Although of course with that you're flying in areas with default scenery so they won't be amazingly pretty or anything (I recommend picking up free scenery from the likes of OrbX - they have a lovely Tasmania texture and land mesh (makes the ground model more detailed) - and then heading over there in your Cessna or whatever once you've got your pilot license!

I find take offs and landings a lot harder in RoF. FSX I can take off and land in my sleep, depending on conditions, though some airstrips are little more challenging than others... Reply0

@Chazmeister I would think about what planes you want to fly and in what areas of the world, and then look to see what addons are available in X-Plane and whether there's enough to get going with. We don't know if X-Plane is going to be as venerable as FSX, so I would probably make it a relatively short-term decision to buy some stuff for that.

FSX on the other hand already has more content than you could ever realistically tire of experiencing. It also has a wider array of side-addons that push the gameplay in different directions other than flying. And honestly it still looks as good as the others and has an incredibly loyal army of addon producers that don't seem to be disappearing.

You're going to be spending money either way, don't spend it thinking that 10 years down the line either game will be the hotness, because it probably won't. Reply0

Flight Sim used to be one of those games I'd read about every month in PCG when I was younger (thank you Tim Stone) and always wondered what it was like. I never played it first hand, until two or three years ago I finally took the plunge with FSX. Since then it's laid claim to some of the best experiences I've had in gaming. There's nothing quite like picking a location anywhere in the world and going exploring. It's a very democratic gaming experience. It can scale in whatever direction you want to go, and you can have as narrow or as wide a focus as you want. You needn't even fly the planes, you can actually play it as a management game or become an ATC, or just craft scenery for others. I'd recommend it to anyone who loves simulation games or complex games which reward time invested.

Personally I had been unaware how much the game had progressed from the blocky buildings and barren green deserts of yesteryear, but thanks to the endless efforts of modders FSX at its best is an immersive game to rival or surpass any mainstream title.

These two videos were a large part of wowing me and hooking me in, sort of displaying two aspects of the game, the commercial pilot flying their routes, and the hobbyist glider who just wants to be up there in skies. I'll post them for any would-be pilots (the game actually looks even better now):

I assume this Steam release will be the current gold version which has been available for four or five years (that's the version you want to get due to improvements and content additions). If anyone has any questions about how to get started with this mammoth game, post and I am sure people will answer :) Reply0

Once again, it's pretty, but there's still no actual gameplay shown, and a huge dose of developer fakery. At some point they'll have to do more to get people excited, like show how any of their systems actually interact. Reply+2

"The Sinclair intellectual property is owned by a company called Sky In-Home Service (a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's British Sky Broadcasting), which grabbed the rights from Amstrad. The Vega is under license."

And this is being crowdfunded on Kickstarter because...........?

Fuck. Right. Off.

Just another case of out of touch people abusing the service rather than seeking proper funding, which they would easily obtain if anyone in the industry was remotely interested, or thought this was a good idea. But it's not. It's a novelty product designed to exploit the nostalgia of others. Reply+5

@Dantonir That's really cute considering how emulation has been a thing for how long now? 15 years? How exactly do they want to claim patent on it, or is it just a case that nobody has bothered in the meantime?

I'd be interested to see what the output quality is like, whether there's any input delay and if it's as 1:1 as they want claim. There are already many ways to play GameBoy games on your TV (not least of course Super Gameboy is still a pretty easy option if you have the equipment kicking around - you just need an HDTV adaptor which costs half as much as this would, the quality is pretty decent). Reply0